BREAKING NEWS - ADDENDUM - 12/08/24 Bent Sandwell are still hiding documentation concerning the use of Government funds to purchase the two DIESEL youth buses (see original blog post below) but has now admitted the fancy fit-out cost nearly £200,000 (ex vat). The precise figure was £98,152.13 plus vat for each bus (on top, of course, of the original half a million pound purchase price).
Also: for some bizarre reason, Facebook doesn't want you to read this post. See also:
https://crowmultimedia.blogspot.com/2024/08/journo-bemused-by-metafacebook.html
ORIGINAL POST
The "dismal science of Economics is all about the best use of scarce resources - getting more bang for one's buck. Alas, both UK governing parties of recent times take a wholly different approach to spending OUR money, and it is duly wasted as a result of crackpot ideology and/or naked self-interest. And the way both Labour and the Tories are indifferent to sound governance is truly appalling.
This post will also look at how "green" issues are rapidly ignored when money is to be had.
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| Image via Earth.Org |
Political parties don't look for the best projects to fund. They simply fill up pots of our money and then throw it at schemes of dubious or no value. If the money isn't spent by an arbitrary date for the scheme to end it is blown regardless, rather than being re-collected for better use elsewhere. Just two examples will suffice. Labour had its horrendous PFI schemes including the absurdly wasteful "Building Schools for the Future" programme (which Sandwell Labour loved!) The Tories had the pathetic "Levelling-Up" agenda whereby "bids" were made for all sorts of absurd projects regardless of merit. As the Tories had the ultimately doomed hope of retaining Wednesbury (an excrement-smeared toilet in Sandwell) they - and Labour (!) wasted a small fortune on a town-centre heritage project and new market. Trying to polish a turd is seldom successful, and this proved to be the case again in that dismal hellhole.
If you are a UK taxpayer - read on and weep ...
On the buses - Sandwell-style - the initial con
The Labour dictatorship at Sandwell Council is one of the most corrupt in the Country and has recently spent two years in Government "special measures" - at horrific cost to the taxpayer - due to "serious governance issues". Many of the Labour councillors despise capitalism, business and entrepreneurship, save where they are direct beneficiaries. Many have not worked or have only done so sucking in the taxpayer's nipple via the "third sector". In short, they couldn't run a whelk stall, but they have become skilful at extracting public funding to keep their rotten hull just above the waterline.
The crooked comrades ran an absolutely disastrous Children's Service which the Government had to transfer into a new Children's Trust. The disgraced former Chief Executive, Jan Britton, squarely blamed social workers for the failure his pathetic service.
The Youth Service spent money on operation two double-decker buses in the Borough. I will leave it to experts whether the expenditure is a sound use of public resources but the comrades claimed that it was. Youth workers ran a counselling service on the buses for a short time on four evenings a week. Two drivers were employed for 18.5 hours each costing the taxpayer £63,100 per annum plus maintenance, repair and compliance costs of at least £10,000 per annum. Of course, the wages of Council-employed youth workers were additional although they would presumably have operated from some other space if not on the buses.
Although Sandwell is a dirt-poor sh*thole, Labour likes to boast of his financial rectitude despite numerous examples to the contrary in Value for Money Reports prepared by its auditors, Grant Thornton. A problem for this youth service arose in that one of the buses was 23 years-old and the other 16. As the bent Council stated in writing: "The current budget for Youth Services would not allow for the purchase of new double-decker buses." But every fatal cloud has a silver-lining and Labour saw the funding being doled-out by the Tory Government to defeat Covid as an opportunity to redirect public health money to a favoured capital project.
One of the few good things about living in Labour Sandwell is that, statistically, residents will escape the Borough by dying earlier than their peers elsewhere. Sadly, public health is so bad there that folks will endure more years of pain and disability than elsewhere - after 50 years of Labour neglect, cronyism, incompetence and corruption.
Before Covid struck, Labour disastrously appointed Lisa McNally as its new Director of Public Health (DPH) - who has now left the Council. [McNally, earning over £100,000 a year plus pension, later tried to enrich herself by suing me in the High Court. The Labour Council unlawfully used taxpayers' money to pay her legal costs, wasting over £100,000 of public funds. Her hopeless and malicious claim was struck out at the first opportunity - Skidders passim ad nauseum.]
When Covid struck Sandwell was in sh*t-creek as its sick population was intensely vulnerable to the virus. McNally attacked Tory Government schemes and experts to the delight of Labour cheerleaders, and became a local media "celebrity". She appeared to some to be building a "personal cult" around herself and, fair play, public health issues did rise a little up the local political agenda although the dial does not appear to have been shifted in respect of the longer-term.
Meanwhile the wicked Tory Government set up the "Contain (Covid) Outbreak Management Fund" or "COMF" and showered zillions on local Councils. This was intended for contact-tracing, targeted interventions, help for those self-isolating and so on. In other words, revenue spending to help combat the pandemic - particularly in areas of Multiple Deprivation like Labour Sadders. The Director of Public Health was to have a large role in determining where these funds should be directed to alleviate the misery of the pandemic.
As the virus began to loosen its deadly grip Sandwell found itself still awash with extra dosh and literally asked around other Council departments how they could blow this unexpected largesse. For their part, the hapless Tories didn't ask for the unexpended money back unless it was unspent by a deadline date (the COMF cut-off). They loosened the rules so that COMF money could be spent on wider "public health" issues in the wake of the pandemic. Even though the Youth Service has been operating for years and is not funded from the bent Council's public health budget the crooked comrades decided to grab the money for the capital expenditure it otherwise couldn't afford. And we are talking over half a million quid here which they decided to divert from specific public health issues - of which there are a myriad in Sadders - and blow it on something else where public health benefits were tangential at best.
At least the locals can take pride in watching the buses drive around for 18.5 hours a week whilst dying prematurely. Their ongoing poor health is a small price to pay for this marvellous scam.
For over a year now I have been trying to get at the facts of this wheeze and following the intervention of the Information Commissioner bent Sandwell has finally coughed-up (no pun intended) some of the documents - although they are still incomplete and the matter is ongoing. In particular, the name of McNally hardly appears in any of the documents produced so far even though she was supposed to play the greater part in deciding where the COMF money should go. Even Sandwell admits that McNally and the Finance Officer provided "guidance" that the money could be used for the capital project rather than urgently necessary public health spending. Indeed the COMF rules specifically stated that the DPH must sign off on COMF expenditure.
Suffice to say that Labour were struggling to justify how spending over half a million quid on new buses somehow constituted "Public Health" expenditure. Almost any expenditure "may" have a distant public health benefit. If Sandwell Labour scraped the mountains of canine excrement off the streets of its ghastly six towns folk "might" walk about more and this "might" improve their health. But in a "Key Issues" document about the buses there is no mention of any specific public health benefit. In another formal document this wishy-washy tripe was the best that the paid service could dream up:
Of course, this blog has always shown that the bent Council benefits from "partnerships" with the likes of corrupt West Midlands Police and funds various charities and organisations which then produce propaganda praising the comrades which would make Josef Goebbels blush - like arts organisation (!) Multistory. And so officers cobbled this together to support diverting COMF money to the bus fund:
- A reduction on anti-social behavior at Lion Farm (where Labour are seeking to destroy 19 ha of green space in a bent deal to build a shopping centre) although to be fair, a partner organisation did speak to your miscreants about drug use. This might be described as public health advice but was not delivered by the Council and it is unclear why such advice had to be delivered from a bus;
- Young tearaways had encountered some arts organisations. Again - why these taxpayer-funded organisations could only do this from a bus is unclear and any public health benefit of this is opaque;
- A small portable stage gave youngsters a showcase for their talent.
It seems that even the comrades were struggling to pull this con off but one employee named xxxxxx, acting with others, came up with the most incredible solution. The COMF rules would be read literally. This is one of the most astonishing documents I have ever seen from a Sandwell employee. It is breathtakingly wrong or else a deliberate attempt to bend the rules on behalf of Labour councillors:
Whilst councillors and officers were plotting together one unnamed Councillor suggested buying electric buses, but these were said to be too expensive AND they would have been unavailable before the COMF cut-off date as documented in this sentence:
"this would have meant that the funding could not have been spent within the required timescale".
For the same reason bent Labour could not go through a "full procurement exercise" since that could not be completed before the COMF cut-off. Did even the grossly incompetent Tory Government imagine COMF money was to be used for major procurements AND not proper public ones at that?
Instead of an open public process bent Labour approached a private (for profit) limited Company in Cambridge, The Procurement Partnership Limited, to do the biz. In order to get the money in time it was decided to buy two buses in stock from Alexander Dennis at £515,990 plus VAT. Sandwell would then have to pay to convert the buses. The catch was that these "green" buses allegedly bought to promote public health were to be, er, DIESEL! WTF?
It seems even within bent Sandwell some were a bit restless about this but it was made clear - Labour have to have diesels or can't screw the Government in time. It was duly spun by Labour that because the old buses were knackered this was, in fact, a "green" move. The new diesel buses would comply with Euro 6 emissions standards and so be much healthier for sick Sandwell than the old nails. These people really are ****s aren't they?
How sick that money can just be recklessly spent by a Council like this and without any interest or questioning about this from the Government even when over half a million pounds is involved!
Needless to say there has also not been a whisper about any of this from the ever-diminishing band of Sandwell Conservatives.
The fag end of Toryism
Shokat Lal has been keeping all the above quiet for nearly a year claiming, amongst other things, simply that the COMF rules allowed this major procurement without saying why or how this decision was made. As above, he is still concealing much - including the role of McNally in all this - despite the fact that the COMF rules specifically made her responsible for signing-off the expenditure. I will keep you posted on this but in the meantime I approached the Tory Government about this and my (then) MP - Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove).
Initially I mistakenly wrote to HM Treasury but was referred to the Department for Health. I can do little better than show the sorry chain of emails which amply shows why the Tories needed to be kicked out.
To the Department of Health Press Office - 27th October, 2023
"Good morning,
I originally sent this to HM Treasury but they have referred me to yourselves.
I am a journalist writing about the governance of Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council (SMBC). My query concerns large capital expenditure by SMBC using the Contain (Covid) Outbreak Management Fund (COMF).
My understanding is that COMF was, as the name suggests, set up to battle Covid via track and trace etc. As the main threat of the pandemic receded I further understand that guidelines were issued to local authorities permitting them to use residual funds for wider public health plans.
For some time SMBC owned and operated two “youth” buses. These were aged and SMBC decided to use over half a million pounds from COMF to purchase two replacements (such was the rush to use the money before a deadline date that they bought two buses “off the peg” and are now incurring substantial conversion costs - but that’s not the issue I am concerned with here).
Was it HM Treasury’s intention that COMF funds could be used by local authorities for large capital expenditure items in this way? If so, can you please point me to the Treasury guidance permitting this please?"
In the absence of a reply I wrote again to a named employee within the Press Office.
Still no response and so I sent it again, but this time to one Andy Brittain, the Department's Director of Finance, on 11th December, 2023 which I also copied to Sajid Javid MP (receipt was acknowledged)
On 13th February 2024 I chased the Department again with another copy to Javid.
On 16th May, 2024 I wrote to Javid again under the heading, "Long Outstanding Matter":
"I appreciate that you are leaving Parliament but you are currently still on the taxpayers' payroll.
I wrote to you as long ago as 13th February, 2024 about a long-outstanding question I had sent to the DHSC. I am still awaiting a response and I cannot even see that I have had an acknowledgement from you.
Here is the email I sent to the DHSC and to YOU. Can you please help me get a response?
Here is the email AGAIN: (Original attached.)"
In this country of grovellers I received an acknowledgement on behalf of "Sir Sajid". [Pass the sick bag, Alice.]
On 19th June, 2024 the Department finally responded to Javid copying me in and effectively telling me to f*** off. Only the last paragraph of the letter is relevant here:
"Now that Parliament has been dissolved before the general election, the Department cannot comment further on this matter. What happens on this issue in the future will be a matter for the incoming Government."
As above, I am still trying to get to the truth via the Information Commissioner and will take the issue on to a Tribunal if Lal continues to conceal the relevant documentation. I am also writing to the new MP for Bromsgrove, Bradley Thomas, asking him to finally get some sense out of the Department although noting that Labour are now also an elected Dictatorship nationally I don't expect them finding any issue with Sandwell's shocking conduct here.
[If you wonder why it takes me so long after the event to produce stories the above will give you an idea why ...]
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